Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. Its vantage is a plea to establish a frame of reference for radically comparative urban studies positioned between geography and archaeology. Based in multidisciplinary social and spatial theory, a critical realist understanding of the boundaries that compose built space is operationalised by a mapping practice utilising Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

Benjamin Vis gives a precise account of how BLT Mapping can be applied to detailed historical, reconstructed, contemporary, and archaeological urban plans, exemplified by sixteenth to twenty-first century Winchester (UK) and Classic Maya Chunchucmil (Mexico). This account demonstrates how the functional and experiential difference between compact western and tropical dispersed cities can be explored.

About Benjamin Vis

Benjamin Vis is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Antwerp’s Urban Studies Institute. He holds a Research Fellowship at the University of Kent, where he co-founded the Kent Interdisciplinary Centre for Spatial Studies. He continues developing urban morphological research on Maya urban life and spatial organisation to make radical comparative contributions to urban studies and sustainable development.